


Perhaps Tomorrow

by emn1936



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:31:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6732394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emn1936/pseuds/emn1936
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stares upward as she disappears from his view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perhaps Tomorrow

Perhaps Tomorrow

 

He stares upward as she disappears from his view – first her tear-streaked face and then slowly, painfully, the tips of her boots. Until she is gone. When all he can see is the bottom of the elevator, he braces his hand on the rock wall of the shaft and bows his head.

 

Listens as she is pulled away from him inch-by-creaking-inch.

 

Feels the thrum of the gears working to drag her inexorably upward and away.

 

Shudders in time with the vibration of the elevator grinding to a halt and closes his eyes, straining to make out the screeching of the metal bars being lifted; imagines he can hear the sound of her bootfalls as she takes a shaking step toward the family that awaits her.

 

He remains rooted to the spot where he last saw her, his faced pressed against the cool rock wall. He told her to go and he meant it, yet every one of his senses strain upward for some sign of her.

 

_Go_ , he thinks, willing her to save herself and those she loves.

_Stay_ , a small, frightened part of him pleads.

 

Long moments crawl by and then he feels it – the familiar thrum of energy he recognizes as her magic. The rock wall vibrates beneath his hand, pebbles and dirt skitter and dance across the floor around his feet. Her magic pulses around him and in that moment he swears that her very essence travels down the cold, dark shaft. And so he closes his eyes and lifts his head, inhaling deeply like a wolf scenting its mate, drawing her into the deepest parts of his soul.

 

_Run_ , he urges, the hands of an invisible clock moving in his mind’s eye; the moments and seconds until the portal closes for good ticking away in his ear.  Somehow he feels her hesitation at the portal. Imagines the frantic way her eyes dart about as if waiting for him to appear. And he knows, oh, he simply knows the very moment she steps through the portal and disappears from this world.

 

From his world.

 

Relief battles with despair; joy mingles with fear and he slides down the wall into a boneless heap.

 

Closing his eyes, he presses his face against his upraised knees.

 

He should get up, he thinks idly, and search for a way out of this dark, dank hole. Do what he must to keep his promise to her to move on.

 

But he cannot.

 

For he can’t help but think that given the many crimes of his past, he and Emma are not bound for the same destiny. And for him hell is to never again lay eyes on his Swan.

 

And yet, he reasons, if he remains here, he might stand a chance of seeing her again. Perhaps one day – hopefully many, many years in the future – she might pass through this place once more on her way to her own reward.

 

So for now, he thinks, he’ll wait.

 

Perhaps tomorrow he will keep his promise to her.

 

Or the day after that.

 

After all, he has nothing left but time.

 


End file.
